After quoting the late 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, the Vatican's most respected citizen found himself the latest Western figure in a rather uncomfortable and unfamiliar position: the object of widespread Muslim anger.
Or maybe that's not such an unfamiliar position for the Prince of the Apostles and successor of St. Peter.
The Muslim and Christian worlds have been at odds for the better part of a millennium. With sincere apologies to all history majors — who should know better — let's just, for the sake of simplicity, place the blame on Pope Urban II who called for a little religious-political diversion we know of as the Crusades. Six or so Crusades later, Islamo-Christian relations were rather strained. Islamic perceptions of the Papacy have never really been the same since.
Yet this most recent outpouring of Islamic anger seems inappropriate. The pope is the figurehead of the Catholic Church after all, and one cannot expect objectivity. Muslims cannot truly expect the Vicar of Jesus Christ to denounce the Resurrection, sell the Popemobile, recite the Shahada and convert to Islam — if for no other reason than that he'd have to give up the papal mitre, which is much more dashing than any headwear Islam can muster. The pope can be expected to speak negatively of Islam just as Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh can be expected to have a few choice words concerning Christianity.
The idea of religious and ideological freedom is not a purely Western idea. However, to the chagrin of moderate Muslims everywhere, the trendsetters of today's Muslim world seem to have forgotten that. The image of fierce and angry-looking bearded men gathered en masse for a casual burning of today's hated Western Leader's effigy or a communal chant of "Death to 'Western nation/entity'" has become a banal familiarity to today's West. One has to wonder at the immediate and furious reactions following any perceived offense by the Christian West to the Muslim East. One has to wonder at the deftness, ability and readiness with which effigies are constructed and burned, riotous mobs formed and incensed. The West stands in astounded wonderment at the anger the Muslim world seems capable of at what we perceive as a simple indecency or misunderstanding, and at the ferocity with which they express it.
So allow me, as the self-appointed temporary spokesman of the ignorant West, to ask respectfully and honestly any who considers him or herself a representative of the victimized East a number of questions. Should a devout Muslim truly care if the Patriarch of the West speaks ill of his or her belief? Is vehemence the answer when a cartoonist of another faith in another country a world away depicts the leader of your faith in a negative or even offensive light? Make Allah any less Allah, less merciful, less transcendent? Make Muhammad, peace be upon him, any less the Prophet, any less rahmat al-lil a'alameen? Do burning embassies and effigies return the honor one's religion has ostensibly lost? Do boycotts and riots that damage your own country's economy more than the targeted offenders' truly communicate that the arrogant and tendentious beliefs that have sparked your frenzy are egregiously false? Does mob violence truly communicate religious fervor?
Perhaps it is our media. Perhaps the imagery of anger and fury fascinates us as much as it confounds us. Perhaps the prevalence I ascribe to this Islamic frustration is an image completely manufactured by a media eager to display exactly what gets ratings. Mayhap, like the whole of the deplorable Crusades, it's completely the West's fault that it continues to make so many Muslims so unbelievably upset. But perhaps — and I proffer this suggestion tenderly and respectfully — the cries for dialogue from the East need to be louder than the cries for death and vengeance.
The Christian West has long been guilty of arrogance, bigotry and ignorance concerning the Muslim East. However, the Muslim East is just as guilty of a one-minded intransigence as the Christian West is of a lack of understanding and respect. This must change for the sake of dialogue.
Were the Pope's comments an innocent attempt at invoking dialogue or subversive Zionist rhetoric aimed at furthering Western dominance? Were the disrespectful cartoons an innocuous exercise of free speech or the most offensive affront to Islam since Ali was not named the Prophet's successor? The truth is that these and other Western offenses serve as fodder for a vocal and extreme minority.
Allow me two final queries, then. Where are those moderate voices, those followers of the Prophet's example of peace, who espouse frank dialogue over mob violence in response to thoughtless or innocent affronts to their faith? Are we not listening, or is their voice too quiet?
Gerald Cox ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in economics and possibly Arabic.
